Living in Wonderland : September 2013

I was told prior to leaving for New Zealand that of any and all regrets one may have regarding Study abroad, traveling too much will never be one of them. On a completely unrelated note, if anyone has any artwork they have been meaning to purchase lately, I happen to know a certain travel hungry artist who would be thrilled to provide you with unrealistically low priced oil, water color, pastel, graphite or pen pieces...

Fair warning: this post is long. But it involves near death experiences, freakishly loud penguins, chocolate and lots of pictures so you should probably keep reading.

With the aid of a decent amount of home-baked bread and cookie dough, two friends and I planned, scheduled and schemed like mad women for three weeks to create a mid-semester-break itinerary that would have made even Heromine Granger with a time turner nervous. Now, on the other end of what may have been the greatest 2 week adventure of my life, I can safely say it was worth every penny and every second. 9 buses, 2 ferries, 4 coaches and 3 planes provided us with over 100 km of hiking, 6 different hostels, 5 nights in huts, 8 packages of pasta, countless sandfly bites and far fewer showers than socially acceptable. We read books and journaled next to lakes, rivers, streams and oceans, in cafes, on the street, in backpackers and on public transportation. We hiked in jungles, forests, valleys, beaches, the sun, rain and a bit of snow. We learned that after 8 shirts, jackets and sweaters is the maximum number of layers you can wear before either additional layers stop fitting or you discover your pack is not bottomless. "Eight shirts worth" is now also an acceptable measurement of cold. We laughed. A lot. Every day. We ate cookies every time we found a grocery store because life is short and New Zealand cookies are delicious. We went to bed at hours so appallingly early that children around the world with bedtimes before nine thanked their parents for allowing them to stay up so incredibly late (if you don't have electricity and the sun sets, it is 100% acceptable to just go to sleep). We roomed with people from Czech, Mexico, Russia, Germany, New Zealand, The U.S, Ireland, England and Australia. We perfected making tea over a cookstove and learned to eat oatmeal at any temperature. We ate cheese sandwiches like they were candy and there were days where the knowledge that a ration of chocolate awaited us at bedtime was reason enough to climb one more hill. We developed horrifically low standards of determining clean, edible and warm. We had a whole lot of fun.

At the Game

Our break officially began in Wellington where we had the privilege to watch the NZ All Blacks smash Australia's Wallabies in one of the biggest rugby rivalry games in the world. It was great fun. I have decided that rugby may be my new favorite sport. In order to simply put a ball into play, teams CLIMB one another; actually construct human towers at speeds and heights that would make an experienced rock climber dizzy, simply to earn possession of an out-of-bounds ball. Also, who doesn't like winning?!

The next day we flew into Queenstown to begin our South Island adventure. I would try to describe the scenery but I'd fail. Suffice it to say, we started taking pictures while still on the tarmac. Queenstown has been named the adventure sports capital of the world and with streets lined with companies offering rafting, speed boating, bungy jumping, heli-sking and sky diving, it certainly lives up to it. The town center sits on a lake surrounded by mountains. It has everything you would expect in a ski town, right down to people walking the streets in ski boots and that one burger joint that always has a line out the door. Our hostel was, like the rest of the town, adrenaline-centric (which turned out to be exactly what we needed as we geared up for our own bungy experience).

The Nevis swing is the world's largest bungy swing. Essentially, it is a bungy jump that swings in an arc once the free fall is completed. In order to reach the platform, you must walk out across a giant suspension bridge to a ledge that opens out over a canyon. The drop down from the platform to the tiny threat of blue masquerading as a river is a staggering 160 meters (534 ft). There is a 70 meter (220 ft) free fall before the cord catches and the rider is hurled toward the oncoming canyon wall in a 300 meter arc. I'd like to remind everyone back home, sitting comfortably in a chair on stable ground, that I am utterly terrified of heights. As we walked across the see-through-bridge, Shira summed up my thoughts quite aptly saying "now would be a great time to have a better understanding of suspension bridges." According to the website, the swing reaches speeds of over 120 kph. I believe it. It was SO MUCH FUN! I'd do it again in a heartbeat (which, if we are measuring from the time of the swing, is an extremely fast unit of time).

See that tiny spec just below the platform? That's us...

Back in Queenstown, we ate celebratory ice cream on the beach, discovered a couple of climbing trees, shopped for groceries for our upcoming tramp and cooked and ate the first of what would be many pasta dinners. With the exception of hiking, our stay in Queenstown was the only time during the two weeks in which we woke up and went to sleep in the same town.

Early the next morning, we caught a bus to Te Anau. The Bus happened to be host to a Japanese tour group for the day, and so we were privileged to hear the history of New Zealand sheep and deer farming from the backseat through intermittent naps. Jury is still out as to whether we appreciated this unforeseen addition to the trip. We walked a few kilometers from the bus to the Kepler Track trailhead and began our first tramp with the knowledge of an impending storm and possibly freezing temperatures. It's all an adventure right? Because of the potential storm, we chose to take the long way around to the alpine region in order to evaluate snow levels from the valley rather than from potentially dangerous elevations in the mountains. This proved wise as the next day the skies opened up and rain (and snow up top) fell steadily from sunrise to sunset. It was cold. It was muddy. We were soaked. Reaching the next hut brought about emotions that can only be described as euphoric. We had a fire going for about 20 minutes before damp wood extinguished both it and our hopes of any warmth for the night. And thus we learned lesson #1 of the Kepler Track: No amount of pleading, coaxing, adding of questionably flammable material or desperate fanning will cause wet wood to catch fire. We made dinner, played cards, huddled for warmth, laughed like fools and settled in for the night. And that's when we learned lesson #2: There are no second chances in life; once your sleeping bag is wet, it stays wet. Luckily, only one bag had been soaked and through some cunning engineering involving multiple garbage and grocery bags as well as a bit of mid-night musical sleeping bags, and we all survived the night hypothermia free.

our reward for hiking in the rain/surviving the second night

reading by the lake

After a brief period of snow that can only be explained as God actually laughing at us, the next two days were sunny and we were happy. We completed the final day hours early as we discovered the prospects of running water, laundry and electricity are all fabulous motivators. A night's rest in Te Anau, one bus, one coach and a ferry ride later and we made it to Stewart Island.

our own private beach

Stewart Island is the southernmost part of New Zealand; a small island off the south island that is home to the Rakiura track and the township of Oban. In the winter, there is one small grocery store and a hotel with bar/restraunt. That's about it. It's perfect. By this point we had fallen into the habit of hitting the trail by 9 and were rewarded the first day of the track with lunch on the most gorgeous beach I have ever seen, in life or pictures. If it were not for the fact that stewart island is significantly closer to the South Pole than it is to the equator, it would be easy to believe it is a tropical island. We enjoyed three days of pure sunshine (something we later learned is unheard of in the winter/spring) and spent the evenings searching unsuccessfully for the southern lights and watching the stars come out while, as usual, laughing hysterically at who knows what. At night we heard kiwis and morepork owls and discovered spiders of such great size that I am questioning the reliability of sources that claim NZ is poisonous animal free. We were highly successful in creating fire on this leg of the trip. Because there was no rain, the temperature never fell below 40 F, and it never felt as though our lives or limbs may be in any sort of peril, it was determined that we were exceptionally good at rising to a distinct lack of challenge. Regardless, we made fire. So that should count for something.

We spent our last night on the island at the hotel with the singular goal of seeing a penguin. There is a blue footed penguin colony that lives along the coast and I made the solemn declaration that I would not be leaving until a penguin was sighted. I spoke with a woman from the department of conservation (doc) and she explained exactly when and where to see the penguins. She explained that penguins are protected and thus when you come upon one, it has right of way. The path is too narrow to pass and so there exists a possibility that you can be stuck waiting for the 8 inch tall bird to amble on its merry little way. She made it sound like this was highly inconveinent. Personally, I couldn't think of anything that sounded more magnificent! Unfortunately, the penguins only come on land at night and that night in particular was forecasted to see rain, hail and gale force winds. A combination of really tolerant friends and the knowledge that the hotel had heating allowed me to go on my penguin hunt. The hail never came, but the rain and wind certainly did. The penguins are supposed to crawl from the sea to their burrows at twilight. An hour and a half into standing at Ackers Point: we were still penguin free and I was beginning to think the doc lady may have exaggerated the penguin population by a bit. The penguins "call" out to one another as they leave the water and we could hear them down below us in the rocks. "Call" is the polite way of putting it. Scream at an ear-shattering, absolutely terrifying decibel is more accurate. If you are walking back defeated along an unpaved path in the pitch black of night in the wind and rain, these blood curdling screams hurtling at you from either side of the path, forest and ocean, begin to make you feel a bit like you are being mocked.
Dumb penguins.
That was my only thought until a furry little ball of joy popped out of the bush and onto the path! And then another one. And then they barked their furry little blue footed hearts out and we jumped and ran backwards because my goodness if the blue footed penguin is not one of the scariest animals I have ever come across. Needless to say, the DOC lady was right and we were stuck in the rain for 25 minutes while we waited for the little guys to move. It was a strange experience, the three of us penguin huddling for warmth because the actual penguins were huddling 5 meters away. In total, we saw 4 penguins and made it back to the hotel in record time for a late night dinner of dehydrated soup, tea and kiwi fruit.

southernmost point

From Stewart Island we traveled back to the main island and on to Invercargil for the night. Invercargil does not have a great reputation but was a necessary stop in order to catch a bus the next day. We were tired and hungry and cold and had an uncomfortable experience involving needing to switch rooms due to a hostel roommate whom we were, well, uncomfortable with. These facts lead to the decision (admittedly an unfair one) that we agree with all of the horrible things said about the place. In actuality, the town is really not that bad. But we still weren't heart broken to move on.

Chocolate factory!

Another bus trip and we made it to Dunedin. We went directly from the bus depot to the Cadbury chocolate factory. Chocolate is absolutely always the answer. An hour and a half long tour left us with goody bags filled with chocolate samples and a clearer understanding of how the chocolate that is nearly impossible to buy in the states without selling an arm and a leg, is made. We spent the rest of the day touring the town, exploring a very cool used book store, buying and consuming apples and honey for Rosh Hashanah and searching for a running body of water for Tashlikh (the later two being part of the Jewish new year). We enjoyed a movie night at the hostel with other people living there long term and, as had become customary for us, we found a jigsaw puzzle to start. Thanks to the three americans, the south island is now littered with half completed puzzles left haphazardly in our wake.

with our tour guide

inside the cardboard cathedral

downtown Christchurch

The bus to Christchurch is six hours long but no one was complaining about the chance to sit and rest for a few hours. Our first evening and night in Christchurch was an experience. The city center was just recently reopened after the earthquakes two years ago and large sections of the town are either under construction or being demolished. A two and a half hour walk in search for food turned up empty and we settled for canned soup from a not so convenient store. The next day was much improved as we visited re-start street - a street/market constructed entirely from shipping containers that currently functions as a down town; colorful, creative and fun- visited the botanical gardens, saw the cardboard cathedral - the temporary cathedral constructed of cardboard that replaces the iconic cathedral that was destroyed in the earthquake- and walked through the Canterbury museum before heading to the airport for our return trip to Wellington.
In a final burst of adventuring spirit (fueled by a lack of bus money and an inability to find the correct bus stop), we decided to walk from the airport back to our flats. What's another 8 kilometers really? We were greeted by the horrific winds we have all come to know and tolerate (love is a bit too strong a word) and we finished off the trip by taking my first ride up the Wellington cable car- a tourist must. I am still in disbelief that the last two weeks really even happened. I am incredibly blessed to have made two amazing friends to travel with, not to mention how happy I am that after two weeks of craziness, we are still friends... There was a solid amount of self congratulations throughout the last two weeks as we successfully navigated our first self-planned vacation. I'm sad that it is over and while I'm not necessarily looking forward to starting classes again tomorrow, let me just say: there is nothing quite like having your own room, a bed, and running water. And vegetables.

Bonus: some random photos from the trip